WWE Fastlane 2019: Preview and predictions

WWE Championship Match

Daniel Bryan (c) vs. Kevin Owens

In an interesting (and welcome) turn of recent events, Kofi Kingston became the new darling of the WWE Universe with an amazing performance in a Gauntlet Match on SmackDown Live when he replaced an injured Mustafa Ali and then again in the Elimination Chamber when he took WWE Champion Daniel Bryan to the limit, having everyone believe for a minute that he actually might win the title. Kingston was then given a one-on-one match with Bryan for the title at Fastlane but had it yanked away by Vince McMahon, who replaced Kingston with a returning Kevin Owens. While it seemed unpopular in the moment, there are bigger things in play here and it should lead to a much better situation for Kingston. As for Owens, he has looked good in his return, scoring a win over the champ in a tag match and debuting the Stunner as his new finisher. Pour one out for the pop-up powerbomb, though. Owens also scored a disqualification victory over Rowan this past week on SmackDown Live after Bryan got involved, which brought Ali down for the save. The roles for Bryan and Owens are flipped for this year’s WrestleMania season as Bryan made his glorious return almost a year ago to face Owens and Sami Zayn, but the chemistry still seems to be there. I’m hoping for a good match here.

Prediction: Bryan is going to be the WWE Champion at WrestleMania. It’s just a matter of how they get there. I don’t see Owens losing cleanly this early in his return so some sort of screwy finish is likely here. Perhaps Rowan gets involved and then Kingston comes out to make the save. That gives us an easy setup for Bryan vs. Kingston at WrestleMania. Bryan could just whine about Kingston not going away like he’s supposed to, and then Kingston will probably have to earn his way into a WWE Championship bout. So, let’s go with Owens officially getting the win here but not winning the title.

What are your thoughts and predictions heading into WWE Fastlane? Which matches are you looking forward to? Please feel free to jump in the conversation in the comments section below.